ZAGREB, May 20, 2019 – Users of Huawei mobile phones in Croatia should not worry about the termination of cooperation between that Chinese company and the U.S. Google, as all applications and services available on their phones will stay the same, however, the situation regarding future buyers remains to be seen, says Dragan Petrić, an executive editor of the IT magazine BUG and Croatia’s representative to the European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA).
Petrić notes that the sale of Huawei phones has been on the rise in Croatia just as all over the world.
The US has just put Huawei and 70 of its affiliates on an exports blacklist. Google has suspended business with Huawei that isn’t covered under open source licensing, Reuters reported Sunday, following the Trump administration’s decision to effectively ban the Chinese company in the US.
Petrić told Hina on Monday that this move had unexpectedly complicated the situation on the mobile phone market. We do not think that this will affect customers much or cripple the business of the strong Huawei, although it can have an impact on the extremely strong trend of growth of that Chinese technology giant at the global level, Petrić said.
Dražen Tomić, the owner of the ICT Business portal, said that everything was still unclear. It remains to be seen how the situation will unfold and how Huawai will respond, he said, adding that for most Huawai phone users it would not be a big problem if they were not provided with Google updates.
The head of the Croatian central state office for digitisation, Bernard Gršić told Hina on Monday that this was new information and that the developments should be analysed. He would not answer if Croatia’s government would follow the example of the USA and Google.
Croatia has recently signed a memorandum of cooperation with Huawei.
Asked whether some projects had been launched under that memorandum, Gršić said a few meetings were held on future models of cooperation.
Croatia pursues its own policy, but it will be in compliance with EU policies, Gršić said.
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